Is Your Life on Hold?

21/03/2014 12:02
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Updated
21 May 2014

Bev James
Business mentor and CEO of The Coaching Academy, the world’s largest training organisation for coaches

Are you truly living your best life?

It's easy to be swept along with the motions of life. You have an idea about what you want, but life events and circumstances sweep you up and time quickly moves on without your awareness. But how much do you have to let the waves of life drag you along?

Each day, unexpected life events occur, whether in our social or family lives, in our jobs, or in the environment in which we live our lives. This is our reality and unexpected changes are out of our control and will always come around; it would be naïve and dangerous to think otherwise and no amount of positive thinking will change that fact.

However, these obstacles do go away. You don't have to be swept up in the direction of each wave that passes you by.

The golden rule is simple: people who live the life they want have a habit of regularly taking a critical look at their reality and know their own strength to change it!

With practice and the right tools, the habit of reviewing your reality and your power to change it is simple - it is a mind-set which once mastered, will drive you along with ease. There are ways to change your mind-set and your habits to apply this rule. You'll know you need to make the shift if your obstacles never seem to go away or you're swept here, there and everywhere. If this is you then your life is on hold and it's time to know your own strength to take off the breaks.

We've all heard it before:

"Someday I'll start a business, if only I had some business experience."

"Someday I'll lose weight, but I don't have time to go to the gym."

"Someday I'll pursue my dream career, but I don't have the skills, or can't afford the training."

If you are guilty of using the "someday I'll" mantra, you are not alone, and you may be trapped on Someday Isle, according to Brian Tracy. This is not a place you want to be if you have genuine intent on achieving your goals and living your best life. You don't have any strength or power to change reality on Someday Isle. You are surrounded by others who also live by the mantra "someday I'll", which drains your power even further. Excuses will quickly further deplete your power to achieve any goal, big or small.

To know what you can change in your life, you need to take a critical look at your reality and truly know your own strengths and abilities. In order to take this critical stance, you need to step right into reality and have a really good look around. Every time the phrase "someday I'll" enters into conversation, or is present in the chatter of your mind, you're thinking in the future and probably concerned about past failures. It is the path in reality that you really need to create in order to reach the end goal in the future.

Making sense of reality can be overwhelming, but with the right tools and techniques to guide you, reality can become simple and highly manageable. The Wheel of Life, often called a Goal Wheel, developed by Paul J. Meyer, is one of the most powerful and well-researched tools of this kind, used by many effective and goal-driven individuals to achieve the life they want.

I first became familiar with this tool during my attendance at a free coaching course by The Coaching Academy (before I became Managing Director, 1000 days later). I quickly realised just how powerful this tool was and still use it to this day.

By applying the Wheel of Life, your reality can be quickly dissected, analysed and effectively acted upon. It is an opportunity to take a moment on the motions of every-day life, to review each area of your life, and to take a detailed look at where you are right now, and where you really, honestly are wanting to head. You will see how you have the muscle to leverage reality to the achievement of your goals.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That one step will get your foot on the right path. If you've just realised that you have left the breaks on and that your life is on hold then you are ready to move forward, take action and make a change!